What is the state of sales outreach?
Why in-market signals should be the driver.
30-second read
Every sacred cow preached and practiced by the cold outreach industry—including email word count—gets destroyed when outreach is initiated by in-market signals and not by ICP.
ICP-driven outreach is the worst thing to happen to B2B buyer inboxes since email automation software. This combination of ICP and automation has resulted in more spam and misguided activity than any other strategy in sales.
It’s simple:
Marketing is for ICP awareness and demand at scale.
Outreach should only be initiated by in-market signals.
(Outreach is reactive, not proactive. Meaning, you don't build lists of ICPs and blast them. You wait for the market signal, then you react.)
Notes:
This is most applicable to startups (early and growth-stage) with sales-led motions.
It applies to all levels of sales-led products and services: SMB, mid-market, and enterprise.
P.S. This is my philosophical answer to the question: What is the state of sales outreach? DM me if you want to chat more in-depth about this. Happy to share thoughts and tactics.